Some time back I was catching up with an old friend. We were talking about what we were doing and he said he was still involved in youth ministry. I mentioned that I was going back to school, thinking about oldth ministry. Guess he misunderstood the gist of what I was saying because he responded that we're only as old as we think we are.
I thought long and hard about what to name this before starting this blog. The word oldth keeps coming to mind. Of course, right away the alarm bells go off because that's obviously not a term that's going to gain a lot of favor. I look around at different churches, and the names they use for their ministries to seniors or for the seniors fellowships. I see terms like Encore, Second Half, Soaring Seniors, Senior Saints. Usually the closest you see to "oldth" would be something like Golden Oldies. A term I've seen a few places has been "50 and better."
It is interesting the euphemisms we use for age, and how the word "Old" has such a negative connotation. I have trouble thinking the word "Oldth" would fly in any kind of setting because we just don't like that word Old. So instead, we dress it up and find good words or phrases that are better suited to marketing a program. I understand it, because I know that there is no getting around a very pervasive perception that goes with the word old.
Now obviously, old is in the eye of the beholder, or at least of the beholded. Beholdee? Beholden? Beheld? Whatever, to my kids, I'm old. I'm probably not all that far away from having grandkids, and they'll really think I'm old. And yet, if I talk about something making me feel old when I'm around my parents, they're thinking that if it makes me feel old it REALLY makes them feel old. I suppose it's a matter of perspective. Of course, as the years go by we find ourselves unable to do some of the things we could do when we were younger. As more years go that list of things we can no longer do grows longer. There are obvious reasons we don't like seeing the effects of time, and so it makes sense we want to find more polished ways of referring to age. Heck, I find myself just thinking hard how best to phrase things just writing this paragraph.
I'm at the very very tail end of the baby boomer generation, a massive demographic that is now moving into the age of all the euphemisms mentioned above. Record amounts of money are spent on trying to stay young, look young, feel young. It's a generation that is concerned about being healthy and active in ways that are unprecedented. And a generation that really, really, really doesn't want to use the word old.
I'm sure there's a lot of denial in that. For many, it's a matter of attitude because if we start calling ourselves old, then we feel old. And I'm sorry, but the word old just seems to naturally be followed by the word farts, and that really doesn't sound good now, does it?
In the end, that's really the heart of the matter when we think of the word old. How it sounds, how it feels, how it's perceived. We don't want to think we're getting older. I think I'm getting to a point though where, I don't mind it. I kind of look forward to it. Old is not necessarily a bad word. The truth is I'm not any younger if I think I am, no matter what I think I'm still 48. No matter what you think you're still (enter the number here... and don't lie!) Why does that have to be a bad thing?
That doesn't mean I'm advocating giving up to a life of rocking chair dwelling. Attitude still means everything. Maybe it's all semantics, but I guess I feel like it's not so much a matter of being only as old as you think you are, but maybe it's as much about old being what we want to make of it. There is much that is good and worthy of celebration about old.
And so here I go saying all this and then illustrating my point from a series of books targeted to a much younger generation. In the Harry Potter series, people were afraid to say the name of the villain Voldemort, and yet Harry Potter insisted that something about that fear gave power to Voldemort. Perhaps there's something about the word old, in that the more we avoid the word we give power to the concept, and in a way we make it sort of a self defeating thing and so getting old just... gets worse?
I enjoyed my youth. Frankly, I'm ready to start enjoying my oldth.
The more I think about it, the more I like the word.
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